Belle Fourche
Big Horn
Billings

3

Columbus
Yellowstone
Twin Bridges

4

Dillon
Big Hole
Nampa

5

Baker
Oxbow
Joseph

6

Enterprise
Lewiston
Missoula

7

Polsen
Glacier
Great Falls

8

Ft BentonRoy
Miles City

9Baker
Lemmon
Aberdeen

10Webster
Emery
York

11Concordia
Salina
Wichita

12

13

A nice little trip.
North to South Dakota, through Montana (often following the routes of Lewis and
Clark) across Idaho into Oregon, and then looping north and back, again.

I hit several new roads that have long
been on my list: US 34, west out of Pierre, South Dakota; US 212 from Belle
Fourche to Custer Battlefield in Wyoming and Montana; the road between Hardin
and Custer in Montana; the road through Wise
River, Montana; the roads between Baker and Joseph in Oregon; and finally, the
road
from Fort Benton to Roy Montana. It must also be said that I missed
several more roads along the way that will have to wait for another trip.

Kansas

The general plan was to strike out
north and then to turn left (or right) at some point. This is the same plan
that I've used on several of my trips. I had maps with me to cover either
a ride to the Maritime Provinces of Canada, or the Pacific Northwest. My
preference is to generally head northwest, so when the weather looked much
better in that direction, that's what I did.

Staying on US 81 out of Wichita, I
didn't stop until the McDonalds in Belleville for breakfast (breakfast #1, with
orange juice)

Nebraska

I
knew that I didn't want to stay on US 81 forever (I've done that, already) so I
stopped at a park in Stromsburg, Nebraska to check out the map and to drink some water. It
was clearly going to be a very hot day.

As I rolled to a stop on the
sidewalk, next to the slide, I heard a slight tick-tick-tick from
the area of the front wheel. I didn't think much about it, but when I started to ride
away, it seemed even louder. So I slowly pushed the bike forward and
backwards along the sidewalk, carefully listening to the noise. It was
clearly coming from somewhere around the front wheel, but beyond that, I couldn't
tell. Eventually I decided that it was related to a little "stiction" in the
forks (I could repeat the noise by pushing down, and compressing the forks), and that the sound was unrelated to the turning wheel.

Just north of Stromsburg, I head
northwest on Nebraska 39 to follow Beaver Creek. When I
slowed to go through the small town of Genoa, I again heard that front wheel
sound--except this time it was much louder, and there was little doubt that it was
related to the turning wheel. By the time I reached St. Edward, I knew
that I really had to stop and figure this thing out. I must have rolled the bike
50 times forward and back trying to sort out the sound. It wasn't there
all the time, but when it did come it was always at either of two points on the
wheel--180 degrees apart. One at a time, I removed each of the four brake
pads, expecting that one of them was hanging. Nope. I then removed
the front wheel itself, thinking that I would be able to feel some problem with
the bearing (I found a brick and a piece of wood to prop the bike up so I could
remove the front wheel--see picture). Still, nothing.

Finally, as I was sliding the
front axle back through the wheel, one of the wheel bearings simply popped out. It's not supposed to do
that! In my hand, now, the bearing felt
perfectly good. No rough spots at all. I again carefully checked the
other bearing--it remained in the wheel--and it, too, felt just fine.

Not meaning to drag this out; after no
small amount of good fortune and good people (this being a Sunday in a very
small town) I found the tools (and
bearing Loc-Tite) I would need to reinstall the bearing in the front
wheel, and put everything back together. You can see the large hammer I borrowed and
a socket--to
whack the bearing back--in the picture. The noise was gone, and things
were, again, right as rain. Or good as new. Or, at least,
fixed. For all that, I probably didn't spend much more time than I would
have for the normal mid-afternoon heat break, so this little episode didn't slow
me up at all.

I should note that I listened very closely to any
noises coming from the front wheel for the next two days, but after that, I put
it out of my mind. It's been fine ever since.

I crossed the Missouri River at
Niobrara State Park, where the Niobrara River enters. Quite a beautiful
area. The old ferry has been replaced by a very long, thin and high bridge that
crosses from the low-lands on the Nebraska side to the top of the bluffs on the
South Dakota side.

It
took quite a number of little roads before I was able to hook up to South Dakota
37 and ride north to Mitchell, where I stopped for the night. The other
two pictures are a self-portrait with the PDA (that's the plastic cover at the
bottom) and the
cashier at the local restaurant.

South Dakota

So, where to go next? I left
that morning expecting to head north, and then turn left and follow South Dakota 34
to Pierre. Except I missed that turn, and, instead ended up in Huron before
turning left on SD 14, again to Pierre. It's not that I didn't know that I missed
the turn, it's just that I hate so much to ever turn around.

It
was going to be yet another very hot day, so I parked the bike next to the
Missouri River (or rather, whatever the reservoir is called here that contains
the Missouri River) to wait out the worst of it. The state capitol wasn't too
far away, so I walked there and wandered through it. Somehow, I expected
some minimal amount of security. Nope. It was all open for me,
including both the House and Senate chambers.
Rather nice
on the inside, but I don't care too much for the black cast-iron (I'm guessing)
dome. When I got back to the bike, I relaxed in the shade reading a book,
only to be bothered by a city policeman, asking that I move my motorcycle. He
more than implied that I should move completely out of the park (if not the
town), so after a few
exasperated remarks towards him, that's what I did. Guess he figured that
there was no end of trouble that I might be causing. Bikers. You
can't be too careful, now.

I should have bought gas in
Pierre.

I just assumed (without checking the map) that there would be some
sort of town along '34 with a gas station. It soon became clear enough that
this is a very remote part of a very sparse state.

I had convinced myself that
I was soon going to run out of fuel, and was
deciding how best to park the bike on the shoulder, and what I should carry
while I hitched a ride to a town. It was of some concern to me that I hadn't
even seen any cars at all, so I was then thinking that I might have to be more
proactive than simply sticking a thumb out. But, just as I was on my last
miles (and, I was riding along at 50 mph to get the best mileage) I came to a
service station--if such be the title--in Billsburg.

As you can see in the
picture, this 'station' is little more than a single pump in a dirt lot.
But, it pumped gas, and that's all that mattered to me. So, in the end, I
didn't have to thumb a ride, after all. Sigh. Might have been
interesting. Something to look forward to, the next time.

Nearing the Black Hills, I could
see a large cloud of smoke on the horizon. It seems that there had been
tremendous forest fires throughout the area, and they were still
continuing. In fact, several of the major tourist roads (Rushmore) through the
Hills
were closed. I rode through Sturgis (site of an enormous annual motorcycle
rally) without stopping, and continued on across the state line.

Wyoming

I missed so many turns just
crossing the state line that I wasn't sure just
where I was going to end up. I really hadn't planned on going through
Sundance, but once there it seemed reasonable to turn north towards Devil's
Tower. I'd been here before, so I just rode on by the entrance to the
park. In any event, I did
get several nice views of the tower. I decided to stop for the night in Hulett (picture). Not because it was all that late, but because if I had
kept on riding, I knew that there weren't going to be many opportunities to find
a motel in Montana. The motel in Hulett turned out to be really quite
nice. I had my own independent little
A-frame. It didn't have a
TV, or even a telephone, but it did have a shower, and I was able to park the
bike just outside the door. The Blackfall Creek flows behind the town, and
the motel was right on the creek.

I spent the evening by walking through
town, and then returning by walking along the creek. Not much of a trail
to follow, but eventually I made it back. At one point I startled a young
deer, who leaped into the creek and swam across (photo, below). It took a couple of tries
to scramble up the opposite bank (the water level was quite high, as you can
see) but, it did,
and then trotted back up the creek.

The next day I continued the same
erratic path that got me there. I had intended to leave north of Hulett
along highway 112, but, somehow ended up on highway
24, which took me back to Belle Fourche in South Dakota. Oh, well. It was
a nice road, too.

Montana

Finally, I hooked up to highway
212 (which was my original plan) and took off northwest back
through Wyoming and then into Montana. This was an all-new road, and I had
been looking forward to it. Along this route, three H-D riders passed me repeatedly
at high speed, only to be passed by me not long after as they were stopped on
the side of the road drinking water, or generally taking a break. Nothing
special about this, except that a good sized support trailer was also following
them the entire way (picture). I talked to them later in the evening, and discreetly
mentioned that I thought traveling with a full parts supply trailer was somehow
missing the entire point of motorcycling (and didn't put a favorable light on
the reliability of their mounts), but they didn't see it that way.

At some point all traffic was
stopped by an on-coming escort vehicle so that a large piece of equipment for
one of the local mines could pass by. It turns out that this same crew had
made well over 20 trips from Canada hauling such
equipment. They had to be very particular as to the roads that they traveled
on.

For some reason, I expected this
route to be entirely the sort of landscape that you see in the
photographs. But, beyond Ashland the hills became steeper and higher, and I found myself
riding in a genuine forest. Nice area. Nice road.

I'd been through the Custer
National Battlefield many years ago (~20 years), but it had been long enough
that I stopped again. This is also the site of a National cemetery, which
is otherwise not related to the battle.

None of the participants are buried
here. The visitor's center hadn't changed much from the last time I was
here, but the gift shop was now free from all 'cheesy' items ("Custer wore
an Arrow shirt") that detract from the overall somberness of a National
Cemetery and a battle site. Good. The presentation was about as balanced as this sort
of thing can be, as it explained what the US policy had been that led to
the battle, and a fair amount of information on the troops and units that took
part, as well as a summary of which tribes were in the area, and the events that
led them to being here. The blow-by-blow details of the battle are now known
to an amazing detail. Markings on found bullets have been linked to individual
riffles, from which many details of the battle can be inferred.A
ranger gave quite a long talk on the battle just outside the visitor's center
(photo).

The
battlefield extends over quite a large
area, and there is a road that winds across it. I
only wish that walking paths had also been defined for those (very) few
people who would prefer to walk, than to drive. Markers have long been
erected at the 'last stand' hill for each soldier (including Custer). None
are actually buried here. Over the last several years, additional markers have been erected to
identify where individual Indians were
killed. Perhaps not surprisingly, these details are less well
known. I didn't have nearly enough water to attempt the entire hike (hot,
hot, hot), so
after walking about 2 miles along the road, I turned back to the visitor's
center (which, you can see in the grove of trees behind me in the photograph
below).

I
stopped at the Purple Cow Casino and gas station in Hardin to sort out my next
direction (I avoided the 'excitement' of the Casino). There's a road that follows Fly Creek to Pompey's Pillar on the
Missouri, but this road is not paved, and I'm afraid that I just wasn't up to it
on that extremely hot day. If I had been on the KTM, I wouldn't have
hesitated, but then, if I were on the KTM, I wouldn't have been there in the
first place. So, I headed north straight out of Hardin on '47 (the road
you see in the picture--straight ahead) towards the small town of Custer. Turned
out that this was a pretty nice road, too, and since it wasn't all that well
paved, perhaps honor is saved.

Pompey's
Pillar is a large rock formation on the Missouri River that figures prominently
in the Lewis and Clark journals. Clark's name can still be seen carved
into it, near the top (now encased in a glass frame). These days there's an extensive series of wood
stairs that takes you to the top for a nice view of the river and the
surrounding farmland. I spent about an hour just relaxing in one of the
chairs outside the visitor's center chatting with one of the (volunteer)
rangers. He was quite knowledgeable about Lewis and Clark, and would have
talked to me about them all day if I had only stayed.

The small town of Ballantine,
Montana is
just up river from Pompey's. I bought gas at the convenience store, and walked around the town
(didn't take long). It was still quite hot, so I was in no hurry to get
out there on the freeway (which I had been avoiding).

Since I planned to drop on down to
Red Lodge, it made sense to call it a night in Billings. There wouldn't
have been enough time to cross the hill down into Yellowstone, and I really didn't
want to consider doing the Bear Tooth Pass at night.

The
next morning, I saw that the three Harley's and their support trailer had also
checked into the same motel. I also talked a bit with a man who had ridden
up from Arizona on a new Honda VTX. The VTX is a ridiculously large
displacement (1,800cc) V-twin that was just introduced by Honda, and this was
the first time I'd seen one ridden more than 50 miles from its home.
I'm not sure of its proper marketing niche, but touring is certainly not what Honda had in
mind, but still, the owner gave the bike high marks.

There are four ways to enter Red
Lodge: either from the south or the north on US 212 (the same route I
followed into Montana), which I've been on; from the east through the small town
of Belfry, which I've also done; or from the west, through the town of
Roscoe. This last one, I had never been on, so naturally I made plans to
pick up this road.

I
headed west from Billings on the Interstate (alas, sometimes it cannot be avoided)
and, then turned south on Montana 78 through the small towns of Absarokee,
Fishtail, and Roscoe before dropping down into Red Lodge. Turned out to be
a nice little road as it skirted along the north side of the Beartooth
Mountains, crossing quite a few creeks along the way. Stunning scenery,
but I fear--based on the number of new homes going up west of Red Lodge--that
this is no secret. I arrived in Red Lodge on July 3rd, and the town was
filling up with tourists for whatever festivities were planned for the next
day. I didn't do much more than walk down Main street on one side of the
street, and return on the other (and buy gas).

I'd
been over the Beartooth pass twice heading north, and once heading south.
And, I was about to do it for the fourth time. This would seem to violate
my usual rule of limiting the number of times that I travel on a road, but this
one is special. I rate it as one of the most (I hesitate to proclaim a
winner) spectacular mountain passes that I've ever ridden. The map
(picture) gives you some idea of the pass. Ridden from the north,
the road follows a fork of Rock Creek up a thin valley until the valley becomes
so narrow that the road turns left and climbs right up the side. It's been
called
the steepest ascent in the United States--not the road, understand, but the mountain side
that the road is on. As you can see in the map, there are four major
switch-backs before it reaches something of a plateau, and then a few more very
tight switchbacks (15 mph) as it reaches the summit. At one point, I
passed the rider on the VTX as he was stopped at a vista point taking
pictures. The pictures below were all taken at the top. This is far
above the tree line, and gave a terrific view of the Yellowstone mountains to
the south, and the Beartooth Range on either side. What makes this pass
distinctive, is the fact that there seems to be no real 'pass', as such. You're on
top of the mountain--not in a valley. Wonderful place. But, at 11,000
feet, expect it to be cold and windy.

The route down the south side is
awfully nice, too, but it's not quite as long, since we're now well up into
Rocky Mountains. The road drops into Wyoming for about 35
miles, and then loops back into Montana at Cooke City, where I stopped for lunch
(patty-melt).

By this time it had been raining off and on--sometimes quite
hard, but not so long at a time that it was ever too uncomfortable. My riding
suit does a good job of keeping me dry (my boots are also waterproof, but my
gloves eventually will become soaked). Just after I sat down at the
restaurant table, the VTX rider walked in, so we had lunch together, and talked
about roads we've ridden. Years ago, I came through Cooke City expecting to get gas,
only to find that the only station had long been closed. These days, Cooke
City seems to have been revitalized by tourism, so there was no danger of not
finding an open gas station.

Wyoming

I
really don't know why I keep taking the same photograph of entering Yellowstone
National Park. Well, here's another one. You can see that the roads
are wet, but at the time it was not raining, and it didn't rain on me much
more when I was in the park. My usual practice is to pull off to the side
of the road, out of the line of cars, and get off the bike to pay the
ranger. You can't tell in the picture, but there really was quite a long
line of cars waiting. This entrance to the park, is only a few miles down
the road from Cooke City. I'm not sure, but it may still be in Montana.

In
spite of all the tourists and all the tourist cars, and the generally poor
roads, I still love riding in this park. I've lost count of the number of
times that I've ridden through it. Certainly, I've been on all the
paved roads. I rode on through Tower Junction, and stopped at Mammoth
Springs Junction.

There's a good sized Lodge here, which had a much-needed
ATM just off the lobby. After gassing up, I pushed the bike over to the gift
shop parking lot (I can squeeze in most anywhere) and spent the rest of the time on foot. It's hardly a long walk from
the lodge area to the springs themselves, but it is amazing how many people
still get in their car for the drive.

It's unfortunate, as it means the
park must provide two parking lots, where likely a single one would work as
well. I didn't walk the boardwalk over the springs (I least I took a
picture of it), but instead took a little-worn trail than skirted alongside, and
to the rear of the springs. It was such a nice day, and such a perfect
trail, that I really thought about taking a break and just spending the day
here. That might have been nice, except that there was certainly no
room in the lodge, and I wasn't carrying a sleeping bag, either. So, after
spending a couple of hours, I was on the road, again. As I walked back to
the gift shop parking lot, I once again ran into the Honda VTX rider.
Somehow, we had managed to 'ride together' all day, without even trying.
He was planning on heading down towards the Tetons, and I was heading out the
west entrance, so that was the last time we saw each other.

To answer your question, those little 'nubby
things' on the top of my boots (photograph, above) are for protection against
the gear shift. They're on both boots, as some older bikes have the
shifter on the right. As it turns out, my Guzzi has floorboards with
heel-and-toe shifting, so I really don't need the 'nubby things' anyway.
At least, on this bike. I almost always change out my boots for walking
shoes when I'm doing any walking at all, but this time, I kept my boots
on. They're actually quite comfortable for hiking, but I still like
changing completely out of my riding gear when I'm not on the motorcycle.
And, too, the soles of these boots are very soft (grippy) rubber, and don't hold
up well at all to much hiking over rocks.

From Mammoth, I took the direct route through
Norris Junction, Madison Junction, and then west out of the Park to West
Yellowstone. Not without--as is usual for Yellowstone--riding over at
least 12 miles of dirt and sometimes muddy roads. I don't mind, so much,
riding on smooth dirt roads, but I hate having to ride through deep, soft
dirt. It seems that the winter months don't do the roads any good, so
during the summer months, the park service is frequently tearing things up and
repaving. Combined with the frequent rain storms in the area, though, it's
not so much fun to ride on.

Montana

At West Yellowstone, I'd already
been on every paved road out of town, so I took '287 as being the one that I
hadn't been on in the longest time. This road runs by Earthquake Lake,
which was formed by a fairly recent earthquake-cause land slide, which dammed up
the Madison River. The Army Corps quickly moved in and stabilized the
earthen dam with something more permanent.

I
stopped at the intersection with state route 87 (where the truck is entering the
highway in the photograph), which runs over he continental divide at Raynolds
Pass, and links up with highway 20. This is only a short, 18 mile stretch
of road, and it links up to a road that I'd already been on, which headed in a
direction that I didn't really want to go (south), but I was still tempted, as
it is also a road that I've never been on. Didn't take it, but I will,
someday.

I didn't really want to take '287 all the way
back north to I-90, so I thought I'd spend the night in Ennis, and then head
west from there the next morning. But, when I reached Ennis, there were
no-vacancy signs everywhere. It didn't make any sense that great hordes of
people would be wanting to come to Ennis, Montana,
but I soon found out that this was the center of the world's best fly fishing
(or so I was told) and the season was just starting. So. No motel
rooms.

I
turned west to ride over the Tobacco Root Mountains,
thinking that there would surely be available rooms in Virginia City, but this determinably
'quaint' tourist town was even more loaded with cars and people than was
Ennis. It wasn't yet dark, but the sun was near setting as I rode through
the towns of Alder and Sheridan, where even the dumpiest
motels were showing no-vacancy signs.
I was now thinking that I'd have to ride clear to Dillon (on I-15) before
finding a room. When I saw the vacancy sign at the
King's Motel in Twin Bridges, I stopped immediately, and
was pleased to find that they had a single room available due to a recent
cancellation.

It turned out to be quite a nice place. Again, no TV, and
no telephone (not that that mattered much to me. I later lent my cell
phone to my neighbor), but I had my own cabin, with a living room, and a full
kitchen (which went unused). I had my July 4th dinner at a small cafe on
the north side of town. Not too bad, and the locals were fun to listen
to. In the picture below, my cafe is at the far end of the street, beyond
the trees, on the left side. The brick building on the left was also a
restaurant, but the menu posted on the door was a little too dear for me, and I
think that they catered mainly to the well-to-do fly fishing crowd.

There
is a terrific road, which runs from Dillon to Wisdom, climbing over Big Hole
Pass, and Badger Pass. It's a nice road, but I've been on it before.
There's another road, which runs from Divide, through Wise River, and then on to
Wisdom that I have never been on. That's the one I took. I can't
decide which is the better, but the Wise River route was just about perfect,
this morning. The air was on the cold side of cool, but there was no wind,
and the sky was deep blue, and nearly cloudless. This might have been the
best morning ride of the entire trip. I stopped at the small town of Wise
River (that's pretty much it in the photograph) for some water and road
snacks. They seemed to have thousands of different sorts of fishing flies
for sale. Too bad I don't know a thing about fly fishing. I was
certainly in the right area for it.

I
suppose that there's a certain balance (or imbalance) in visiting both Little
Big Horn and Big Hole National Battlefields. These are sites of the two
major victories against the US Army during the US / Indian wars, although,
obviously, in both cases the Army would win the final battle. The Nez
Perce victory here was at a huge cost. This was my second time at Big
Hole, so instead of climbing up the mountain side as I did the last time (first
photograph, below), I walked along the river to the site of the Nez Perce camps
and the site of most of the initial fighting. I parked the bike at the
visitor's center, and then walked the 3 miles, or so (second and third
photographs), to the encampment site (fourth photograph). Most of the
teepee sites were marked as to who had been there (using eyewitness accounts),
and the entire area is treated the same as a national cemetery, since 60 - 90
Nez Perce had been killed (most of those during the initial early morning raid),
along with 20 - 30 soldiers (most of them on the hillside during the siege).

I was the only one at the
encampment site, and later talked to one of the rangers about it. It seems
that while quite a few people do drive to the visitor's center, not very many
people drive down to the river, and even fewer of those will get out of their
car and walk the mile to the encampment. We both agreed that if there were
a walking path from the visitor's center down to the encampment, more people
would take the time, but the park service didn't have the money to build a foot
bridge over an irrigation canal, so it wasn't likely to happen.

And, it seems
that nobody ever walks from the visitor center, back along the road, down
to the river as I had done (second picture, above). I watched several cars
drive slowly along the road (within the park), read some of the signs, and then
continue on, without ever stopping to get out.

I probably spent 3 1/2 hours here,
then continued west on '43 over Chief Joseph Pass and turned south to follow the
Salmon River down highway 93.

Idaho

The first time I was on this road,
it was a narrow
two-lane blacktop that was rather steep, and had many sharp turns. These
days, it's been tamed and now has passing lanes, and most all the sharp turns
and steep grades have been smoothed over. It's still a good road,
though. I stopped in Salmon for lunch (cold turkey sandwich, and a raspberry
milkshake), as once again, it was going to be a hot one. I almost wanted
to turn around, and head back into the mountains, but that wouldn't have taken
me where I wanted to go--the Sawtooth Mountains.

At
Challis, I had the chance to ride a new highway! I always look forward to
these new stretches of unseen pavement. The part of Idaho 75 from Challis
to Stanley new to me. Where the road turns off from highway 93 is a new
state museum devoted to this old mining region. I was concerned, at first,
that it was yet another instance of spending the entire budget on the building,
and paying no attention to the displays, but this one turned out to be very well
done. I was particularly interested in all
the many dirt roads that lead to the old (and abandoned) mining towns.
Some day, I will have to return with the proper motorcycle.

The road into Stanley is a nice
motorcycle road. By this point the Salmon
river has become only a small river winding through the mountains with the road
on one side, or the other. I stopped at a small rest area, about halfway
there, near the town of Clayton. It seems that there had once been a dam
here (in early part of the 1900s), but that
some time in the 20s (not sure of this time period) a government employee took
it upon himself to blow the
thing up.

As the dam was there to support the mines, and as the mines were
dying anyway, I guess there wasn't much need to rebuild. Somebody will
have to check me on the dates and facts.

I'm not sure why I thought that I
could find any rooms in Stanley, but there sure weren't any. Stanley is
not a big town, and it has fewer hotels than you might think. It's
certainly a resort town, but the most of the resort hotels are further south in
Ketchum and Sun Valley. In any event, there wasn't anything here for
me. The photograph shows the gas station, with the Sawtooth Mountains in
the background. This is a stunning range, that the picture really doesn't
do justice. For many years

Stanley was on my list of must-see places, and
it took so long for me to get here, that it seemed a bit surprising that I've
been here twice, now.

If you look at the map shown, you'll
see the route of a road from Lowman to Banks. All of the printed maps I
have show that this is an unpaved road. No doubt, it was unpaved until
recently, but, I'm pleased to say that it's paved now. And, what a great
road it is. From Lowman, the road climbs up and over a pass, but soon
enough attaches itself to the side of a shear wall as it follows a rushing
stream down towards Banks, and the Payette River. Recommended. It
was while running along this very winding road, that I passed a man on a Honda
900. Soon enough, he passed me back, so I just followed him for a couple
of miles. It soon became apparent, by watching him, that he was riding way
over his head to keep the pace. I was afraid that he was about to run over the
side, down into the water, so I quickly passed him again, and then rode quite
hard to get so far ahead of him that he wouldn't even try to keep up, and would
perhaps slow down to his own speed. I never saw him again; hope he made it
OK. As a general rule, I rarely ride anywhere near my limits on these long
trips. It'll just tire you out, and I'm not in any hurry to be anywhere
anyway. You can't ride at 10/10ths (or even, 8/10ths) and expect to do 600
miles in a day. Or, at least, I can't.

At
Banks, I turned left, and followed the Payette River south. Or at least,
that's what I should have done. If I had followed the river, I would have ended
up in Ontario, which was where I was riding though the next day, anyway.
As it was, I stayed on highway 55 to Boise, and then skirted west on the old
highway to Nampa, before calling it a night. I do hate riding in the Snake
River Basin. It seems it's always 100 degrees. I stayed at the Shilo
Inn, which was a nice enough place. Oddly, though, none of the local restaurants
were open (July 4th shut-down?), so I had dinner at a Jack-in-the-Box. Not
necessarily bad, but I can't recommend it, either. The next morning, the
restaurant next to the Shilo was open, so I had breakfast there. Much,
better. I don't recall hearing any fireworks that night.

The next morning, I was grinding
up the Interstate though Ontario. I had two options. I wanted to go
to Joseph, Oregon (new place), and I had the choice of crossing the Snake River
at Brownlee Dam and on to Oxbow after riding through Cambridge, Idaho, or I could
continue to Baker, Oregon, and ride through Halfway to reach the same point
before turning north and crossing the Wallowa Mountains to Joseph. I chose
the second option. Why? Well, there's a good museum on the
Oregon trail a few miles east of Baker City that I'd been to before, and going
this way would allow me to continue that short section of road already traveled
to it's end.

Oregon

I spent an annoying amount of time
in Baker City trying to find a place that I could change my oil. It seems
that Baker City no longer has any full service gas stations, and I
didn't even come across a likely auto mechanics shop that I've often used.
So, I caught state highway 86 and was soon on a new highway towards the Snake
River.

This is most definitely not the shortcut to take if you want to get
to Joseph, but it
is the more scenic. For the most part, the highway follows the Powder
River as it winds down, down, down to the Snake. I wouldn't have thought that
Baker City was all the high in elevation, but for 40 miles, it seemed the road
never stopped descending. Beautiful area. At Richland, I turned
north through Halfway, and then all the way to the Snake River at Oxbow
Dam. I turned south and ran several miles along the river (or reservoir),
but since I really didn't want to ride back into Idaho, I pulled to the side,
and walked down to the water for a rest and some water for myself. Down in
this dry valley it was pretty warm. I saw one boat on the lake, and I
can't imagine that this place ever gets too crowded.

The road from here north to
Joseph, was one that I'd looked forward to for many years. It's
not an easy one to get to, though. There are no towns of any sort for at
least 60 miles. It's a thin, but paved, road that starts out easily enough
following a creek, but then takes off up some steep and winding grades (see
attached map) to cross over a couple of passes. Quite a good motorcycle
road. The snow peaks of the Wallowa mountains are always visible to the
west as the road actually goes around the highest peaks of the range. When
I reached the T-intersection at state highway 350, I debated a bit on whether or
not to run right and run on to Imnaha (at the end of the paved road), or to just
keep on to the original plan of going to Joseph. Imnaha will have to wait
for another trip.

Joseph is a neat little
town. Having been to Enterprise (just up the road), I expected Joseph to be
pretty much the same thing. As it turns out, Joseph has become quite an upscale
artists town. Or at least, that's what it sees its future as being.
I parked at a visitor's center parking area, and then walked into town.
First I walked all the way to the north end, and then back to the south
end. I was expecting a few more hotels. I stopped at a little information
kiosk, and got the names of a couple of places, and then returned to my bike
(and cell phone) and made a few calls). Luckily the B&B at the south
end of town had an opening, so I was in luck. This turned out to be quite
a nice place. I had a fully equipped room upstairs (didn't need to share a
bath), and there was a nice deck
and
patio out back. After unloading things, I took another walking tour of the
town. There are several bronze foundries for sculptures (photograph) and
there were several examples of their work all through the town. I
particularly liked the painted sculpture of the girl in the summer dress
(photograph). I'm afraid that I've grown tired of swoopy eagles and noble
looking Indians, though.
There
was a small building devoted to pictures of the Nez Perce Indians (photograph),
which I thought was quite interesting. Actually, 'Nez Perce' is not
the name that is used, but the name that they use for themselves escapes
me. When it comes down to it, it's a bit creepy (not to say , tasteless) that the town has named
itself for Chief Joseph, considering the history of the land (and, perhaps owing
to the fact that I had just come from the battleground where they were attacked
after being driven off the land, part of which is where the town is today). And, while
on the subject of unpleasant things, the Manuel artist center (or whatever it's
called--see the photograph, below) apparently insists on playing mind-numbing
new-age music at all hours of the day--on a loud speaker that is audible blocks
away from the building. I cannot believe that somebody would think that
the beauty of the place (mountains, and flowers, and mostly attractive
sculptures) would be enhanced by adding music. It's a very nice building,
but really, now...

I needed to change the oil.
Even though there's no reason the engine wouldn't be perfectly
happy to do the entire trip without out it, I've rarely ridden over 3,000 miles
without changing the oil. And, at 245,000 miles, I try to treat the old
goose nicely.

So, I was happy (and, a little
surprised) to see a Honda shop in Enterprise, and even more happy to see that it
was open. The good shop that they are (this is the test), they were only
too helpful to give me the oil pan and a funnel and let me do the work myself
next to the shop. It takes less than 3 minutes to do the job (leaving the
filter alone), so I was soon on my way again. I felt better for the motor.

The
road from Enterprise to Clarkston is a classic. One of the great roads in
America, if only for the bit descending down to the Grande Ronde River and
ascending back up on the other side. Nice, smooth, constant radius curves
and amazing scenery. I stopped at the river (as is mandatory for all
travelers) to enjoy a slice of pie (Boysenberry, this time). The owner of
the Mini-Cooper (see photograph) sat at the next table. He drove specifically
from Portland just to drive this road. I asked him about his car (it
having just come out), and he was quite complimentary. I wondered how well
he was treated by owners of real Mini-Coopers, and he said "Just
fine", he owned two, himself. He loved the new one. I had to
smile as he told me with excitement about the curves that I could expect further
along. I had to tell him that I'd been here before. Nice road.

Washington

Staying
on highway 129 I rode through Anatone (why is that sad looking town still
here?), and then descended down a couple of switchbacks to Clarkston, Washington. I stopped at a nice rest area to catch up on my book, and to
wait out (again) the worst heat of the day. I drank quite a bit of water
on this trip (you can see one of my bottles resting on the red Polartec in the
rear trunk). From here, I crossed the bridge (you can see it in the
background), and generally took the most inefficient route getting back to
highway 12 through Lewiston, Idaho. The highway isn't marked too well.

Idaho

There really isn't any other
practical way to cross central Idaho except via highway 12. Luckily this
is a very good motorcycle road. The route follows the Clearwater River,
and the Lochsa River, and really becomes its best once beyond Kooskia. I
probably saw more motorcycles on this road than at any other point in the
trip. Looked like most of them were just taking day trips along the
river. Other than a single stop for gas (and lunch) in Orofino, I didn't
stop until I had crossed the state, and reached Missoula, Montana. Since
I've been on this road quite a few times, I didn't bother with any
pictures. Suffice that it's a nice road alongside a clear river with lots
of boulders and the occasional rafting expedition. Of interest is that it
was the route of Lewis and Clark, which I'd been following for much of my trip
without really trying.

Montana

I've never really like
Missoula. Seems I've never seen it at its best, and I'm always getting
stuck in traffic jams at red lights that never seen to turn green. Anyway,
I found a decent hotel, and took the opportunity of doing all of my laundry.
I walked to a nearby restaurant, that looked (from the outside) about the
caliber of Denny's. Except that my halibut dinner and pint of Guinness (my attempt
at an English fish-and-chips meal) came to just under $30. No pictures of
the hotel, and no pictures of Missoula.

The next morning, I had some
decisions to make. There were a number of possibilities. One was to
keep going east across Montana 200, another was to head north on '93 to Glacier,
and possibly on into Canada. I elected to take the northern route, and if
possible, to either cross over the Going-to-the-Sun highway to St. Mary, or at
the least, to ride in the open-air busses that were not operating the last time
I was in Glacier.

Of
all the roads leading north into the park, the only bit that I hadn't been on
was the section of '93 along the west side of Flathead Lake. The last time
through this area, I took the road on the west side of the lake. So, that
part was easy: through St. Ignatius, Polson Lakeside, and on into
Kalispell. Kalispell is noteworthy for having at least 100 stoplights (it
seemed to me) to get from one end of town to the other. Just outside the
park, I stopped for fuel. I was planning to eat lunch at an adjacent cafe, but, the
place was packed. Not a good sign. I walked back to the bike.

When I reached West Glacier, which
is the resort town just outside the park (similar to the gateway towns just
outside all the major national parks), the road was jammed. I looked left
as I neared the park entrance, and saw cars backed up nearly to the intersection.
And, I knew that the actual park entrance wasn't for another mile, at
least. Perhaps the July 4th weekend is not really the best time to be
visiting one of the major National Parks. Glacier may not be as popular as
Yosemite and Yellowstone, but it's doing a good job of looking like it is.
So, that eliminated crossing the park, or even riding up into Canada.
Without slowing down, I just kept on riding along US 2. I did finally
stop at the small town of Essex for my lunch. Turned out to be more of a
bar than a grill, but the food was good, and not one Winnebago was parked out
front.

Browning,
Montana is the center of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. It's also a
rather dreary place. Closed down businesses,
no hotels that I would want to stay in, and no obvious restaurants that I'd want
to eat in. It is also the location of the Museum of the Plains Indians,
which was started by the US Interior
Department, and when first constructed, was likely a pretty nice place.
Even so. Apart from the deteriorating building, and the displays that had
not been changed in years, the displays that were there were stunning.
I've never seen such a large display of native dress. Remarkable
work. Most of it in very good shape. I hope it remains that way.

From
Browning, I turned south on US 89 towards Great Falls. The interesting
thing about this road is that the Rocky Mountains are constantly visible to the
west (see the photograph, above of the museum), and that the land hardly looks
like it has ever even been grazed. No fences. You almost expect to
come over a rise and see an enormous herd of buffalo. I stopped at the
town of Choteau for fuel, and still more water. If there had been any sort
of clean looking hotel, I would have spent the night here. It's usually
much better to stay in smaller towns that you can walk around in, than cities
where the hotel is often at the edge of the city, too far away to walk
anywhere. But, there was nothing here, so I continued on towards Great
Falls.

The hotel in Great Falls was
fairly close to the river, so I thought I'd just walk over to it to have a
look. And, since I hate retracing my steps, I thought I'd just walk
through the park, and return over another bridge to complete the circle.
Well, 8 miles later (perhaps I exaggerate), I did just that, and managed to take a walking tour of some
of the areas of town that the typical tourist does not see. What I didn't
see were the actual Great Falls. I'm not entirely sure what is there, as
the Missouri River has obviously been dammed. Perhaps there is some remnant
of the falls below the dam. I'm not sure.

Next morning, I followed the
Missouri River down to Ft. Benton. Historically, this was the end
of the line for river boat traffic on the Missouri, and as such, was quite a
bustling place, at one time (note the large, brick hotel in the
photograph).

Not now, though.
Even the main highway, US 87, misses the town by a couple of miles, so you really have
to want to go to Ft. Benton, to be here. There's a very good Lewis and
Clark center in town, which also serves as the jumping off point for canoe expeditions
down the river. If you look at a map, you'll see that the Missouri River
is virtually free of even any unpaved road access excepting for the crossing of US
191 100 miles away, beyond which the river flows into Fort Peck Lake. There
were a couple of brothers who were getting advise from the rangers at the
station before launching their own canoe. Based on the 'advise' that they
were receiving, I can't help but think that the rangers do their best to scare
off all but the totally committed. They clearly are trying to discourage
the casual person who might think it would be fun to paddle down the
river. It's pretty clear, that once you start down, the conditions are
little changed from the time of Lewis and Clark, so you'd better be well
prepared. The dog statue (Old Shep) is in commemoration of a locally
famous dog who waited for the return of his dead master at the train
station. A surprisingly common story, isn't it?

State
highway 80 starts at Fort Benton, and immediately crosses the river to the
southwest. I really enjoy this part of Montana.

Rolling green prairie
(even in July), very few fences, and mountain peaks all around. In this
case I could just see the Bearpaws far to the northeast, and the Highwood
mountains much closer to the south. At one point, I was so impressed with
it all, that I just stopped on the highway and took a shot of the road.
There's little danger of meeting any traffic. While taking the shot, I
envisioned the picture as a computer desktop background so I made sure that
there was enough room on top (in the sky) for the icons. And that's exactly what
it's used for on my computer at work.

There were a few dirt roads crossing the
highway, which left a trail of mud and goop after the rains that morning.
Just at the moment that I crossed one of these, I passed a truck coming from the
opposite direction, which splashed a huge amount of mud over me and the left
side of the motorcycle. Mud covered half the face shield, and all the way
down my side. Well. That's the dirtiest I got the entire trip.

I turned off on state highway 81
through Coffee Creek, and connected to US 191, which took me on into Roy.

Roy
Montana of course, is something of the homeland (it often seems to me) of
the Kalals. Certainly, of our wing of the family. My trips through
this area have been infrequent, and always (I'm sorry to say) without much
warning. I parked the motorcycle on Main Street, and walked across town to
the northwest corner to the home of Dick and Carley (my 1st cousin, once
removed) Graham. I had no
reason to think that they'd be home, but Carley met me at the door, and--much
more surprising--recognized me immediately. Carley made the three of us
some lunch (many thanks), while Dick played a bit on one of the violins that he
made himself. Later they took me through some of the storage buildings (it
helps to be well organized--Dick and Carley are), and Carley opened a box to show me a large quilt
made from men's suit fabric samples that Grandma (my Great-Grandma) Kalal (photograph) had made for Dan, but was never able to deliver to him. That
quilt is now in my guest rooms. Also, Carley had several of Dan's old text
books and a memo book full of his writings. Those books are now with
Becky. Many, many thanks for keeping these things so well all these
years.

The
American Legion Hall. Dan Kalal was one of the charter members, and on an
earlier trip here, Dick Kalal showed my his entry in the member's book. I
checked this time (so that I could take a picture of it), but nobody there knew
where the book was.

The Wass Mercantile.

The
view south on Fergus Street, not far from The Graham's house. The cross
street is probably 1st street.

Cousins: Carley and Ruth.

From Roy, I dropped down to
Grassrange to fill up, and then headed out on Montana highway 200. I
met a man, there, who was riding around on an old Honda Helix scooter.
Seems he's put quite a few miles on the thing.

There's
not a whole lot of anything between Grassrange and Jordan. But, I spent
most of my
time keeping an eye on a tremendously large thunderstorm that seemed
to be following me, and even seemed to be curving around me (the photograph was
taken in Sand Springs while the storm built up to the west).

Eventually,
it seemed prudent to turn south on '59
towards Miles City to put some distance between it, and me. Even so, the
sky turned pitch black behind me, and the winds were starting to get very gusty,
from all directions. Not long after I pulled into the motel in Miles City,
everything let loose, and the storm howled all night. I saw quite a bit of
damage done to trees and signs the next morning, but I managed to escape it,
entirely. By the way, after nearly running out of gas several days
earlier, in South Dakota, I wasn't taking any chances on these remote
roads. If I saw an open station, and I had at least 50 miles on the clock,
and there was no telling how much farther I'd be riding, I stopped.

I
probably spent about 30 minutes (reading) in the restaurant that you can see in
the photograph below, before realizing that no waitress seemed in any hurry to pay any attention to me. So, I drank my glass of
water (left no tip), and walked a block
away to another restaurant. In the other photograph, you can see just a
bit of the mud bath that I took earlier that day.

I had a coupe of options, the next
morning: either go south on Montana 59, a road I've never been on, and
looked pretty interesting; or, head east on US 12, and ride through a corner of
North Dakota. I chose '12' since this would give me a chance to pick up
just about the last few miles of this highway that I haven't been on. US
12 runs from Aberdeen, Washington, through Walla Walla, across Idaho, and
Montana, and ends up in Detroit. Once I catch those
few miles in Minnesota, I'll have it all. Well, there are worse reasons
for selecting a route.

North Dakota

I crossed into the state at
Marmarth, and, except for stopping for gas in Bowman, kept on riding across the
state line to South Dakota.

South Dakota

I
stopped at Lemmon, just for a short break, but stayed much longer going through
the Petrified Wood Park and Museum. Frankly, it's more of a museum of a
1930's roadside
attraction than anything to do with Petrified Wood. Nobody in their right
mind would do anything of this sort today. There can be no question, that
the good people of Lemmon would have done better, in the long run, to promote a
natural Petrified Forest State Park, with the 'wood' in its natural setting,
than by loading it all up into a flat bed truck and building this
park. An amazing thing, though. And, just a little weird.

Just east of town, I hit the worst
road outside of Yellowstone. Much worse, really. The highway was
completely torn up for quite a few miles. The dirt and gravel part that
you see in the photograph wasn't all that bad. It's when I had to ride
through the soft dirt in the ruts cut by the earthmoving equipment that I began
to wish that I had taken another route at Miles City. At times I was
riding at a walking pace trying to keep the front wheel pointing in
approximately the correct direction through the deep sand and dirt and
ruts. I am grateful that it wasn't raining.

Once through all this, it was
clear sailing all the way across the state to Aberdeen. I seriously
thought about continuing on to Minneapolis (see above, for reason), but thought
better of it. It was time to turn south, and ride home.

The
next morning, I did ride east for just a bit, to Webster before turning
left. I'd already been on the north-south route through Aberdeen, and I
hadn't been on all of the road from Webster to Yankton, South Dakota, so that's
what I did. Quite frankly, the scenery isn't all that much different, no
matter which road you take. It's all gently rolling green farmland, with
the occasional small town. All the roads here follow the section lines.
Nice area, really. I like it.

Staying on '25' I stopped at the
small towns of Alexandria and Emery, looking for an open restaurant. I
found one that wasn't too awfully bad. The empty lot in the photograph, is
not really empty, at all. It's a city park dedicated to their most famous
son--Sparky Anderson. I see that the concrete pad under the picnic table
is in the shape of home plate. Not a real inspiring place. I wonder
of Sparky was there for the dedication?

As it was yet another too hot day, I
stopped at the riverside park in Yankton, South Dakota. Can't say I look
too cheerful in the picture. No matter.

Nebraska

South on US 81 through Norfolk
(home of Johnny Carson--as they are only too insistent on proclaiming), and then
to York, where I spent the last night (there's a Chinese restaurant in York, not
far from the Interstate. Avoid it).

Kansas

It's not all that far from York to
Wichita. I was home for lunch.

Quite a nice trip, really.
Those last 500 miles, regardless of the direction, often seem to be the hardest,
as I'm riding over well-known roads. But, I saw quite a bit of new
territory, and added still more roads to the collection.

Except for the
first day's little incident with the front wheel bearing, I didn't have any
motorcycle problems on the trip. I probably drank a couple of gallons each
day, but I packed enough water on board to take care of that. Not much
rain, and it wasn't unwelcome. Good trip.